AdDaRo
Sequel to The Celestia Code. When the monsters created by the dark crystal engine escape their prison, it's up to Princess Twilight to deal with them. She gets help and advice from Princess Luna, but things don't go as planned. ·iisaw

AlDaRo
Twilight Sparkle faces social ostracization when a crystal is discovered to contain the lost Princess Luna and must look past those social norms in order to learn more about this strange mare. ·Fuzzyfurvert

“Polaris…” Twilight dutifully recited from an open tome in front of her, “is one of the brightest stars in Luna’s night sky. It is always located in a tangential line with the North Pole, and is often used by naviponies to guide ships on their course.” A purple glow enveloped the book as Twilight turned the page carefully. The book was well-worn, telling of many reads previous. The book’s cover was a faded bluish-purple, with a circlet of stars wrapping around a full moon.

“The only brighter star in Luna’s sky is Sirius,” she continued, her voice dull, “which, due to unknown factors, appears brighter, burning a white-blue in the sky. Sirius has always been somewhat of a mystery to novice and expert astronomers alike, because it poses a scientific anomaly that has yet to be solved.” Twilight sighed and shut the book, her soft purple glow winking out in the night light.

She was perched on the balcony of her library home, a telescope low enough that she could gaze through it while laying as she was, a quilt underneath her, her copy of The Wonders and Mysteries of Luna’s Sky sat next to her, now closed, and an unfinished sketch of as many of the stars she could fit onto a sizable piece of parchment. It was a cool summer’s night, and Twilight was staring at Luna’s moon and stars in something akin to wonderment.

Twilight had always been fascinated with the night sky. The winking lights that appeared in a stark contrast to the dark sky had always entertained the more creative side of Twilight, a unicorn that appeared borderline OCD.

And that, she thought wistfully, is why this looks like…well, this. Her gaze had fallen to her sketch of the night sky in front of her. It initially started out scientific, with gridlines and geometry running in perfect parallel to each other, and she had measured out the precise location of these stars, labeling them with names, light intensity, and color.

At least, that’s how it started. As she swept her gaze across the parchment, Twilight felt a wry amusement well up inside her. For, while the left most part of the parchment was scientific and orderly, the right side of the parchment had descended into chaos. Here, geometry lines fell to pieces, the stars that were present were unlabeled, and Twilight suspected that she had invented more than a few of these stars.

She had even started drawing, with messy dotted lines, her own constellations. The Ursa Minor that she had lulled back to sleep with a little bit of research and quick thinking was present in a vague form (it looked like a pillar more than anything, but Twilight knew what the original design was).

She noticed the cutie marks of her friends, all but one of them being three clusters of stars. She noticed Applejack’s, three circles of stars with a small belt of stars extending out of the tops of those circles. There was Fluttershy’s, whose butterflies were apparent, even if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Rarity’s, of course, were probably the easiest to spot. Four stars in a diamond shaped pattern with one bright star in the middle, repeated thrice, just like on her gorgeous friend’s flank. Twilight could feel another smile build up inside her as her eyes fell on Pinkie Pie’s constellation, which was another circle of stars, like Applejack’s, except Pinkie’s had a long tail of six or seven stars extend from the bottom of those circles, like strings to her balloons. Finally, her gaze fell upon Rainbow Dash’s constellation, the brightest one of them all, the stars extending in a jagged line out of (as far as Twilight could tell) a nebula. Fitting, Twilight thought dryly. Her pegasus friend was always showing off, trying to be the best and outshine everyone.

Twilight laughed softly. Of course, if Rainbow Dash wasn’t doing that, she wouldn’t be the friend Twilight adored. The more Twilight thought about it, in fact, the more she was sure that if her friends had ever stopped doing some of the quirky things, they would stop doing the important ones, too. If Rarity and Applejack ever stopped fighting, they would lose the things that marked them distinctly as individuals. If Fluttershy ever became bold and aggressive, she’d lose her trademark kindness. If Pinkie Pie stopped throwing parties…Twilight shuddered and stopped herself. They all knew what would happen THEN.

But that wasn’t even the most interesting part of her sketch. Twilight’s horn glowed again as she picked up her sketching pencil, going to the barely marked far side of the parchment. Here, swirls of stars cascaded into darkness, and here is where she had finally started to sketch the moon.

The moon. It was what had captivated Twilight’s imagination, ever since she and her friends took up mantles as the bearers of the Elements of Harmony; ever since they destroyed the darkness residing within Princess Luna’s soul that went by the name of Nightmare Moon. The moon had captured her, just as Nightmare Moon had captured Princess Luna. Twilight had spent almost every spare moment studying Luna’s moon, sketching it out, and even going so far as to attempt to calculate some already-known data about it.

Of course, Twilight was just trying to fool herself. And, deep down, she knew it, too.

It wasn’t the moon that had captivated Twilight. It was Princess Luna herself. Ever since the encounter with Nightmare Moon, Twilight had felt something, some piece of herself attach to the Princess of the Night. Initially, she had been worried that her friends would get tangled up in the almost magnetic attraction. So, she had casually hinted at this with her other friends, but to no avail. None of her friends seemed to feel any sort of connection with the Princess. Twilight met this with a mix of emotions. While it was comforting that her friends wouldn't be involved in this (whatever this was), it was slightly depressing that she wouldn't have anypony to talk to concerning her attraction.

“Is attraction even the right word?” Twilight mumbled to herself, sketching pencil lazily running over the parchment. “Despite all the knowledge everypony seems to think I have, I haven’t got a clue about any of this.” Her sketch pencil was zooming across the paper now, guided by Twilight’s absent thoughts.

Glancing down at the parchment again, Twilights eyes grew wide. Hastily, her magic crumpled up the parchment as she shoved it underneath her bed, cramming it with numerous other crumpled up pieces of paper. She winced as she did it, knowing that parchment was an expensive luxury, and it was a shame to waste it like that. But she was embarrassed, ashamed even, at what she had drawn. It was…unprofessional, to say the least.

Besides, she thought as she gathered her things from the balcony and prepared to turn in for the night, it might be crime to think about a Princess that way.

~*~*~*~*~

Somewhere, deep in the recesses of Twilight Sparkle’s mind, a shadow stirred, and an ice blue eye opened with excruciating slowness.

“…Twilight Sparkle…” the shadow whispered with a raspy voice. “You have…so much…poweerrrrr…” The shadow grew in size, minutely, and opened the other ice blue eye. “Soon…you shall taste…it all…” the raspy voice broke into a maniacal cackle, “aand…when you do…when you achieve…your full potential…it shall be MINE.”

Maybe the author is simply using 'parchment' to mean high quality paper (as normal paper seems to be quite availible in the show)? I would not be suprised if most people these days did not really know the difference between parchment and paper.